<table align="right" valign="top"><tr><td><img src="http://img.timeinc.net/cooking/flavorprofiles/cumin_m.jpg" border="0" align="left"></td></tr></table>Cumin. It's a spice that was essentially absent from the table when I was growing up, and for many years I paid scant attention to it ... until the last year or so, when I started making curried stews and lentil dishes rather frequently.

What are your favourite recipes that use cumin, either in whole-seed form or freshly ground? With cumin, a little goes a long way; this is one highly aromatic spice.

My favourite uses are in my homemade goat curry (where cumin is one of at least four spices I use for the rub) and in flavouring lentils. With the lentils, I will typically sautée some onions and jalapeño pepper and then add a good teaspoon's worth of ground cumin to the mix, then allow the spice to coat the onions and jalapeños completely; I then add tomato juice and cook the lentils in the resulting "broth" or base, if you will, until they're done. The dish ends up tasting not unlike a good bowl of chili.

A couple of the more authentic Chinese eateries around here have a really good Western Chinese Muslim dish that's essentially a stir-fry of lamb tidbits and onions with a truly heroic amount of cumin, plus chile peppers. in a light, scanty sauce that's probably just the juices and the stir-frying oil. I've learned to recognize the characters so I can order it, and I'm just about addicted. One spot also makes a chicken version for people who don't like lamb.

Or I baste grilled chicken or fish with a mix of EVOO, lime juice, salt pepper, chopped garlic & cumin

One dish that we do is to take cooked pinto beans, rinse them off, add chopped red onion & add the mix above, stir…let the flavors mingle in the frig. Makes a great bean salad that pairs well with BBQ or grilled steaks.

Robin, that sounds great. I will have to pop by my local halal shop sometime and see what lamb or mutton tidbits they might have. Normally I go there to buy goat for stewing, but maybe there will be other cuts available too.

I love it as well. Can't stop eating the Indian cauliflower/potato/green chili dish found in many Indian cookbooks. Uses whole seed, ground seed and toasted ground seed. Never appreciated the effect of freshly roasted cumin seeds till I started making this dish.
Something I make for the coming holidays are cumin spiced pecans - cumin, hot pepper and a bit of sugar carmelized in the oven . Can't keep them longer than a few days - they are addicting.
My favorite though is something I only dream about because I do not have a recipe. The rotisserie chicken I had at Pollo Rico - a Peruvian fast food joint in Washington D.C. several years ago. Whatever they did to the chicken before and during cooking was wonderful. Lots of cumin.

Mike, tell me about your roast pork shoulder. Was it the whole picnic, or just the butt end? I often do the butt on my grill at 210 degrees for 18 to 20 hours. This results in the pork being so tender that the shoulder blade bone can be removed by simply pulling it out, then the meat can be shredded with two forks employing a digging motion. Terrific stuff for bbq and I hear it makes a terrific meat for chili too. I put a heavy coat of a southwest flavor dry rub on the meat and use a remote thermometer to tell me when the meat reaches 190 degrees. you would be surprised just how juicy it still is even at that temp.

As you intimated Paul, cumin is essential for Mexican cooking. Chili would not be chili with out it. Most chili purists do not like beans in their chili, but I seem to prefer them. I also like quite a load of peppers, and the Big Jims (chiles) that Jenise and I both got a shipment of this past fall sure adds a great flavor to it as well. I roasted the peppers on my charcoal grill, then did a half assed job of de-seeding them, but didn't peel the skin off. I found that it is easier to do as I use them.

Laura, could you expound on how you use cumin in your eggs? I sometimes use salsa in my scrambled eggs, and I also use 1-2 of the big Jim's that I spoke of in my note to Paul. I do love the flavors of the great southwest.

Bob - I'm not sure which end I got, although it was skin-on and bone-in. I picked it up here at the Farmer's Market from a guy named John Bledsoe who's made a name for himself in local pork circles. I didn't use a thermometer for it, but it came out as you said - tender enough to be shredded with a couple of forks. The cumin-oregano-lime made for a very flavorful coating, but it didn't overwhelm the flavor of the pig.

Mike Filigenzi (Sacto) wrote:Bob - I'm not sure which end I got, although it was skin-on and bone-in.

Mike the butt would only contain the should blade bone, if yours had a leg bone then you had either the lower portion, to a whole picnic. a whole one would likely weigh in at or close to 16-18 pounds. Either would be super flavor.

I use cumin in all types of curry, of course. I also use it in Mexican and Morrocan dishes. It is especially important flavor in my Mexican black beans. I use it in couscous stews. I sometimes use it in Spanish/Sephardic dishes, like chicken stewed with tomatoes and garbanzos.

Cumin is also a useful accent to flavoring sauteed carrots or winter squash (e.g. butternut). Saute slowly in butter, with salt, pepper, a bit of ground cumin. You can finish with a bit of fresh grated nutmeg.

As already mentioned, it's a staple of Mexican and Carribean cooking. And also of Indian and to a lesse extent, Thai. Just about every curry or whole bean recipe I know of calls for it.

BTW, if you're into investigating the possibilities of cumin, don't forget the common cumin seed's more aristocratic cousin, black cumin, or "shah jeera" (noble cumin) in Hindi. This spice has a more smoky flavor than common cumin, and often appears in Northern Indian recipes.

Mike Filigenzi (Sacto) wrote:Bob - I'm not sure which end I got, although it was skin-on and bone-in.

Mike the butt would only contain the should blade bone, if yours had a leg bone then you had either the lower portion, to a whole picnic. a whole one would likely weigh in at or close to 16-18 pounds. Either would be super flavor.

Must have been the butt. It was a blade bone rather than a leg and it was much smaller than 16 pounds. It was cut a bit differently from the shoulders I've bought from out butchers.

Bob Henrick wrote:As you intimated Paul, cumin is essential for Mexican cooking. Chili would not be chili with out it. Most chili purists do not like beans in their chili, but I seem to prefer them. I also like quite a load of peppers, and the Big Jims (chiles) that Jenise and I both got a shipment of this past fall sure adds a great flavor to it as well. I roasted the peppers on my charcoal grill, then did a half assed job of de-seeding them, but didn't peel the skin off. I found that it is easier to do as I use them.

Green chile is good in everything. You've probably noticed that after freezing the skins come off easily. I usually peel them before freezing, though, so there's less volume.